All is not well!

Evening all, hope everyone is feeling great and having a sober fun Saturday night?  I’m not!!  I’m so fecking ill that I’ve fallen out with my body and we are not on speaking terms – so much so that just to spite me and make me worse my body decided it was my time of the month too – fml!!!!  So, I have this flu bug thing – that’s twice in 5 1/2 months I’ve been sober – like seriously.  I’m not even going to bother saying it – yep I was less often sick when drinking!  There, said it again!  But lets move on – I’m actually thinking I might be coming out the other side though – it has been 4 days.  Fingers crossed.

So what else has been happening, well I still haven’t started my new job (they are saying Tuesday now) and to be honest I’m glad, what with this sickness – thank you higher power!  But I’ll have to sort out my money to make sure I have enough at the end of the month – at least I’m doing it sober!  I would have insisted on still drinking and wasting money before.  It’s our 5 year wedding anniversary on Monday – the hubby handed me a pressie earlier – a gorgeous wooden box framed heart with our names and wedding date on it.  Love it!  He isn’t naturally a romantic and doesn’t speak of his feelings but when it comes to presents and especially cards then he really lets me know how he feels.  In his card he said that we’ve been through lots of ups and downs and things are getting so much better now.  This means so much to me as I know how much he wanted to love me and support me but found it so frustrating when I was drinking.  The drink now removed means we are really focusing on our relationship and you know what?  It’s really good – we are enjoying each others company with ease and doing so much more with our time.  He also cooked me dinner twice this week with me being sick and has tried very hard to give me space but make sure I’m okay – I’m a difficult sick person, one minute I can’t stand anyone near me and the next I’m all needy lol!!!!  Here’s hoping things get back to normal from tomorrow.  Oh and I had forgotten our anniversary was coming up so I had to sneak online earlier and get a pressie for him – anyone else’s memory went to mush from stopping drinking??  This is why I need back to work – I feel like I’ve had a lobotomy!

When I first stopped drinking I was so absorbed in my obsessive head that I didn’t think what the benefits could be.  Over the next month or so I lost weight – with nearly a stone off I felt a little better about myself.  I have long hair but was always wearing it up in a messy bun.  I started to straighten it again and wearing it down.  I started buying autumn dresses and tops and was feeling pretty good.  The only place I was going dressed up for AA but I didn’t care – it was for me!  Feeling pretty good one day I took a pic and took one from me at my friends wedding last year to do a comparison.  Well fuck me, when did my face start bloating like that so much??  How did I not notice that at the time?  My features even looked different and my eyes puffed.  I felt pretty chuffed with my before and after pic’s and it gave me a boost of confidence – something I had hung up in the closet 7 years ago when I broke my leg (sober I might add, I fell of a segway whilst trying to turn it around a cone at 2mph!!!)  Apparently it was very similar to a sports injury only non sports body had already put on half a stone on my summer holiday it was still trying to shift and then the break led to 3 months on a sofa not moving!!!  I was renting a terrace house at the time in Belfast along with Mr B – my now hubby.  The toilet was downstairs and my bed was moved down so I literally only ever moved to the loo, bed and sofa – it was a small house so extremely short distances.  Over those 3 months I put on another stone and a half – on top of that half a stone from hols grrrrr!  Everyone kept telling me – be careful what you eat, you metabolism will hit rock bottom and you won’t burn any calories!  Yeah, I took all that advice……  nope, what I did was feel extremely sorry for myself and every time a friend was coming to visit and they asked what I wanted I said ‘BEER’ – of course I explained it was for later that evening or the weekend but as soon as they left I was straight into those 12 beers – Carlsberg to be exact – I loved it!  Or at least I thought I did.  Then when Mr B got home and if it was Wednesday or Thursday and a Friday then I would ask him to get me my beer for that evening.  Then I’d ask mum to come and get me to take me to hers once or twice a week and mum would get me beers for staying at her house.  God we are clever, us alcoholics!  No-one else knew the others were getting me drink so to each of them I was only drinking once or twice a week.  Thinking about it now, I think this is when my alcoholic drinking really took off or at least notched up another level.  I was bored, feeling lonely and sorry for myself, had too much time on my hands to feel self pity and already having an underlying predisposition to drinking heavily well the outcome was inevitable.

By the time Christmas had come and gone I had the weight on, kept my hair in a topknot and lived in leggings and baggy clothes for the next 6 years!!  I got engaged and married in that time and didn’t even try to loose the weight.  I didn’t give a toss – okay lie, I did but the drink was more important and I was not giving that up!  It didn’t matter how miserable and low I got – drinking was mine, my precious, my saviour and my confidant, mine mine mine!  As you know from previous posts, I joined slimming world and managed to loose a stone, then found red wine and that led me down another slippery slope.

If you have read the other posts you will know I also suffer from IBS and in my early 20’s I drank my way through that as well.  What is it with me and wanting to give myself more pain for the sake of a good time – apparently?!  I can’t understand it – or me!  Why do I self sabotage?  I suppose that’s one for the counsellors and my sponsor lol!  So back to my bloated photo and the wedding that was from.  I had taken my mum with me to that wedding because Mr B had enough of my behaviour at other weddings or outings and didn’t to be embarrassed again – I didn’t realise that was his real reason until recently.  I was going to be seeing people who hadn’t seen me in 10 years and there was me fat, bloated and ugly – I was thinking of the comments behind my back ‘She used to be lovely’, ‘what happened to her?’, ‘looks don’t last and they certainly didn’t on her’!  As if people care that much, but I was so paranoid.  All I could do was get to the bar as quick as possible after the church and get my drink on.  My mum had warned me to take it easy and I swore I would.  I started with bottles of beer and was trying desperately to go slow – JUST CAN’T DO IT!  Then I was having two to my mum every one gin – she was even having coffee in between.   Every time someone offered me a drink I took it, even if I had one or two.  By the time we were sitting down to dinner I was half sloshed!  Then, Jackpot!  Free wine on the table and that was me hogging the red!  I talked shite to an old lady on my left and played loudly and over the top with a kid on my right.  My mum sat across from watching and trying to remove the bottle’s of red without me noticing.  So I started on the white – I don’t even like white wine!  And it wasn’t even 9pm!!!  I hadn’t even noticed that mum had stopped drinking.  I made my way around the table to speak to people I hadn’t seen in years.  My false hugs and over exaggerated laughing – Oh I’m so happy, yes I have a fantastic job, Oh my husband is fab, me and mum just decided to have a girlie day out, Oh I miss you all so much, no, no kids yet – well you see we have had problems – and mum to the rescue ‘It time for us to go home’ – ‘One more minute mum, I need to see my friends’.  So mum followed me round while I hugged the bride and cried at how gorgeous she was and I missed her so much – why don’t we see each other?  I need to speak to you about stuff (what a time start that shite!) and then the kissing and slobbering around her dad and mum!  Finally, my mum had enough – hometime.  But guess what, I’m an organised gal – I had a carry out in the car for back at mums and I continued drinking.  I also continued crying and having a drunken breakdown to my poor suffering mum!!  Yep, mum is on my amends list for my step work.  And that was and end to another depressing night that I blamed everyone else for and put in a box in my head.

You know what – I’d take a flu bug for a week over any of those drunken episodes!  100 times over!  I don’t want to go back to that and you know what – it wouldn’t be going back.  They say we pick up where we left off, so things would just keep getting worse.  I don’t think I could do anymore pain – it already broke me!  Oh and I’ve finished step 1 and 2, yay!!!!  I also have a new sponsor, I don’t think I said.  Unfortunately it didn’t work out with the last guys just with time and schedules etc.  But I had met this amazing girl at one of my meetings and clicked instantly!  She’s been in the fellowship for 17 years and really knows her stuff.  She’s a great laugh too – I can see a good friend for life there 🙂

Right, that’s enough for tonight – I’m surprised I managed to waffle so long.  Time to go back and sniffle cough 😉  Oh and a huge thank you to signing up for the blog – I can’t believe over 50 wanna hear my ramblings – it helps me so much and I hope it helps you guys too.  Maybe we are all quite normal lol!!

Big hugs,

Sibi xx